FNB launches banking app for tablets

With tablet devices growing in popularity in South Africa, First National Bank (FNB) has become the first of the country’s retail banks to release a banking app customised for tablet devices.

“The new banking app, designed specifically for tablet devices, was developed with ease-of-use as a key priority and utilises the full capability of the latest tablet devices. It is completely custom-made and not a re-skin of our existing smartphone app,” FNB’s Farren Roper said in a statement on Monday.

“We decided to build a customised App in order to offer consumers a fully immersive app that includes touch screen tablet banking, with features like drag and drop, swiping and double tapping, all of which make for a great user experience.”

According to the research firm IDC, year-on-year sales for tablet devices in South Africa has grown by 78.4%, while laptop and desktop computer sales have declined by 4.1%.

The tablet market grew more than 80% to surpass 128-million units shipped in 2012, and IDC expects tablet shipments to surpass desktop PC shipments for the first time in 2013, and to outpace “portable” PC shipments in 2014. Currently, it is estimated that South Africa has more than 1-million tablets in circulation.

According to FNB, new adopters of tablets are not the only consumers who will benefit from the new banking app. A quarter of the bank’s current 450 000 smartphone app customers are accessing the app from a tablet device, the bank says, meaning that these customers can now migrate to the tablet app.

“Customisation is crucial for tablets because of their popularity globally and in South Africa,” said Roper. “Tablet devices are important enough to have their own roadmap.”

“We know that tablets are very popular devices and that their popularity is on the rise, which has given us an opportunity to super-serve our tablet app clients,” said Roper. “This App was built in South Africa, by South Africans.”

The app is available for download in app stores across Apple, Android and Windows 8 devices.